Science Online Letters on the Atmosphere (SOLA)

Guide for Authors
16 July 2024

AIMS AND SCOPE
JOURNAL POLICIESHOW TO SUBMITARTICLE TYPES AND ARTICLE PREPARATIONOPEN ACCESS, COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING
POST-ACCEPTANCE PROCESS

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This Guide for Authors is valid until the 2025 edition, Volume 21. SOLA will be published
as a Springer/Nature journal starting from the 2026 edition. Manuscripts submitted after
September 2025 and those accepted after January 2026 will be published as S/N Journal
articles with a different APC from the current regulation and a different editing platform fromthe current system. It should be remarked that there is possibility that the manuscript
submitted in 2025 and accepted much earlier than 1 January 2026 must wait for publication
until the S/N publication platform opens. For manuscripts published as S/N Journal articles,
please refer to the submission guidelines that will be independently provided soon later (as of
16 July 2024).

AIMS AND SCOPE
SOLA (Science Online Letters on the Atmosphere) is a peer-reviewed, Open Access, onlineonly journal. It publishes scientific discoveries and advances in understanding inmeteorology, climatology, the atmospheric sciences and related interdisciplinary areas.
SOLA focuses on presenting new and scientifically rigorous observations, experiments, data
analyses, numerical modeling, data assimilation, and technical developments as quickly as
possible. It achieves this via rapid peer review and publication of research letters, published
as Regular Articles.
Published and supported by the Meteorological Society of Japan, the journal follows strong
research and publication ethics principles. Most manuscripts receive a first decision within
one month and a decision upon resubmission within a further month. Accepted articles arethen quickly published on the journal’s website, where they are easily accessible to our
broad audience.

JOURNAL POLICIESSOLA upholds the highest scientific and publication ethics standards and the journal’svarious policies are detailed below. SOLA follows the Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE) guidelines when dealing with any cases of misconduct or dispute.
Acceptance criteria
SOLA is a rapid review, rapid publication journal that publishes articles meeting the basic
criteria for scope, length, ethical standards, English standards and clarity of expression. In
addition, articles must be scientifically rigorous and technically proficient, with methods andanalyses that are appropriate to the study being reported.

Furthermore, all manuscripts reporting original research should:a) contain observations, experiments, data analyses, numerical models, or theory
concerning the basis and application of meteorology, climatology, and atmosphericsciencesb) contain new findings with scientific value or technical developments, obtained by theauthors themselvesc) have logically explained conclusionsd) be written in clear and concise English.
Authorship
By submitting to SOLA, all authors undertake that they have agreed to the author list. Anyamendments to the list (such as changing the order, or adding or removing authors) after
submission must be approved by all authors and the Editor. In addition, all authors musthave contributed substantially to the work; have agreed to be accountable for theircontributions to the work; be able to identify the co-authors responsible for each part of thework; have confidence in the integrity of the work; and have reviewed and approved thefinal manuscript. Contributors who do not qualify for authorship should be included in the
Acknowledgements section.
Duplicate submission and unoriginal material
Authors must not have submitted their manuscript to another journal before the Editorial
Committee makes the final decision on its suitability for publication in SOLA. If there is anindication of duplicate submission, the Editorial Committee will investigate further and will
reject immediately in cases where duplicate submission is confirmed.
The journal screens accepted articles for any unoriginal material before publication using the
iThenticate service (ithenticate.com).
Authors may freely submit their manuscripts to another journal after withdrawal or rejection
from SOLA.
Author warranties
When submitting a manuscript to SOLA, the author(s) warrant that:a) The article is original and is not under consideration for publication in any other journal.
b) The author(s) are the sole author(s) and sole owners of the copyright in the manuscript,
and the manuscript does not infringe on existing copyright or other third-party rights. Ifmaterial from other sources is included in the manuscript, then appropriate permissions
have been obtained.
c) Due care has been taken with the preparation of the manuscript to ensure its integrity,that the facts presented are true and accurate, and that nothing in the manuscript isobscene, defamatory or libellous or violates any right of privacy.
Image and data integrity
Images, especially graphics files, which are included in a manuscript for review should not
be processed except for necessary guides for readers (e.g., labels or arrows, etc.). If
manipulation is necessary, it should be applied to the entire image and any changes should
be noted in the manuscript.
Any data associated with images or other aspects of the manuscript must be retained by theauthors and provided upon request.
Reproducing copyrighted material
If a manuscript contains a figure or other material from another source, the authors must
provide documentation of the permission to re-use from the copyright holder. SOLA is not
responsible for obtaining these permissions and authors warrant that they have the rights, or
have obtained them, for all material in their manuscripts.
Availability of data and materials
SOLA encourages authors to include the data underlying their work as Supplementary
Material. These data, which must be under 50MB, may describe observations, experiments,
modeling or analyses and may take the form of databases, simulations, movies, large figures
or as otherwise appropriate.
Conflicts of interest
SOLA strives for transparency around any real or perceived conflict of interest regarding
articles published in the journal. A conflict of interest exists when judgement about one
interest might be influenced by a secondary interest. This can extend to any financial
consideration, academic competition and rivalry, personal rivalry or intellectual
incompatibility. Conflicts of interest extend to all participants in the peer-review process:authors, reviewers, Editors, and Editorial Committee members.
Any real or perceived conflicts of interest by any of the participants in the publication
process must be considered while undertaking their respective tasks for SOLA. When
relevant, they should be declared clearly to the relevant person.
Authors should declare in their cover letters whether they have any conflicts of interest(financial or otherwise). If so, the Editor will determine the most appropriate course ofaction. Reviewers are asked to declare any potential conflicts of interest and recuse
themselves if the potential for bias exists.
The Editors and Editorial Committee undertake to declare their conflicts of interest whenhandling manuscripts for publication.
Confidentiality
SOLA maintains the confidentiality of all submitted and rejected manuscripts. By submitting
to the journal, authors agree to keep all correspondence about their manuscript (from the
Editorial Office, editors and any others) confidential.
SOLA uses single-blind peer review, so the identities of reviewers are not revealed. Journal
staff will not disclose a reviewer’s identity unless the reviewer requests it. As part of their
responsibilities, reviewers undertake to maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts to which
they have access.
Editorial and peer review process
Upon submission, the Editorial Office ensures that the manuscript complies with the basic
length and figure/table number requirements (see other sections for further details). For
compliant manuscripts, the Chief Editor assesses whether the manuscript should be sent forpeer review (and may often ask an Editor for assistance where necessary). If the manuscript
is deemed suitable for peer review, the Chief Editor assigns an Editor who is responsible forhandling the peer-review process.
The Editor selects and assigns reviewers who are asked to return their reports within 2
weeks. When reports are received, the Editor assesses the manuscript and the reviewers’comments, and advises the authors of their decision: revise or reject.
If invited to resubmit a revised version, authors must do so within two weeks of the decisionnotification date. If the Editor judges that the manuscript needs major revision and it would
take more than two weeks to revise, the Editor will usually reject it. However, the Editor
may also recommend that the authors resubmit the manuscript as a new manuscript aftersufficient revision is completed. Authors should note this in the cover letter of any
resubmission of a rejected manuscript.
Manuscripts rejected as being not suitable for the journal or judged to be unlikely to be able
to be sufficiently revised will not be reconsidered and should not be resubmitted.
The review process for corrigenda is simpler. The Chief Editor or the previously assigned
Editor are responsible for assessing the merits of each corrigendum. The Editor may consult
the reviewers or the Editorial Committee members during the review process.
Referee suggestions
Authors are requested to provide the Editor in charge with suggestions of up to 5 potential
reviewers, with their e-mail addresses, during the ScholarOne submission process. The
Editor in charge reserves the right to determine the final selection of manuscript reviewers.
Appeals
Authors who believe that errors have been made during the editorial review process may
contact the Chief Editor and lodge an appeal. Authors must provide specific evidence of amisunderstanding or mistake by a referee or editor. Appeals will be considered carefully by
the Chief Editor, whose decision is final.
Corrigenda and Retractions
SOLA supports the correction of errors in the published literature. If published articles arefound to contain significant errors, the Chief Editor and Editorial Committee will determine
whether a Corrigendum or a Retraction is most appropriate.
Retractions are used for articles that have been found to have invalid or unsound results or
conclusions, or for cases in which authors are believed to have breached research or
publication ethics.
Corrigenda are used to correct mistakes in the article that were made by the authors or
during the production process, respectively. When preparing Corrigenda, include the title,
author names and their affiliations. The title should follow this convention: “Corrigendum:Your original article title”. No Abstract is required.
The main text of Corrigenda does not need to be divided into sections. However, if you do
require the use of separate sections, please follow the instructions for Regular Articles below.
For other elements, please follow the relevant instructions for Regular Articles as described
elsewhere within this document.

HOW TO SUBMITBefore submitting your manuscript, please read through the entire Guide to Authors andprepare your manuscripts according to the instructions. Manuscripts must then be submitted
via the journal’s ScholarOne system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sola. Instructions
and user tutorials for the use of ScholarOne are available on the submission page. Should
you have any questions, please contact the SOLA Chief Editor:
Prof. Masaru Inatsu, Kazuaki Yasunaga, Kazuaki Kawamoto
Co-Chief Editors of SOLA
E-mail: sola_edit@metsoc.or.jp

ARTICLE TYPES AND ARTICLE PREPARATIONSOLA publishes Regular Articles, which are generally shorter, letter-style articles within amaximum word count of 3100 at the time of submission (*) and a maximum total of 7
figures and tables. Authors can determine the structure of the manuscript’s main text (*seebelow for more details).
Corrections (Corrigenda and Retractions) are published when justified. Authors who would
like to submit a Corrigendum should contact the SOLA Chief Editor and see the ‘Corrigenda
and Retractions’ section for more details.
A sample style file for each article type can be obtained from the SOLA ScholarOne
webpage (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sola).
Cover letter
The manuscripts must be submitted with a cover letter that contains the title, author name(s),affiliations, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author(http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/societyimages/sola/Sample-Cover-Letter.doc). A shortparagraph on the manuscript’s suitability for the journal is useful.
Authors may specify names of at least one appropriate Editor in charge of their manuscript
and are required to specify names of 3–5 potential reviewers and their e-mail addresses
when submitting the manuscripts through the ScholarOne submission system.
Requests for waivers of the Article Processing Charge (APC) should be made in the cover
letter. See the Open Access section for more details on the journal’s APC waiver policy.
If the manuscript is a resubmission of a previously rejected paper in SOLA, the cover lettershould include the manuscript number of the previous submission. In this case, please
include point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments in the previous submission.
The Chief Editor will evaluate the suitability of the resubmission and may assign the same
Editor from the previous submission.

English standard
All manuscripts must be written in clear and concise English. Those not reaching therequired standard may be returned to authors for further revision.
FormatRegular Articles should include the main text, figures, tables (if any), a cover letter, and theLicense to Publish form, signed by all authors. The License to Publish form can also be sent
separately via e-mail to the address of the SOLA Editorial Office (sola_edit@metsoc.or.jp).
The main text must be a double-spaced Microsoft Word (".docx" format is recommended) or
PDF file with line numbers on the left side of the pages. The main text should include, inthis order: the title, the author names and affiliation(s), Abstract, main text in appropriately
divided sections, Acknowledgements, Supplementary Material (if required), and theReferences. We strongly recommend using the relevant template file, which can be found at
the “Instruction & Forms” link at the SOLA ScholarOne webpage(http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sola).
Word limit
The main text must be less than 3100 words at the time of submission, including the abstract
and the main body of the manuscript. Note that the title, author names and affiliations,Acknowledgements, description of the Supplementary Material, References, figure captions
and words within Supplementary Materials are not included in the word limit. The total
number of figures and tables must not exceed seven.
Manuscripts exceeding the word limit and/or the total number of figures and tables will be
returned to authors without review by the SOLA Editorial Office.
At the time of acceptance (the final version of the manuscript), the maximum word count ispermitted up to 3500 (which includes the abstract and the main body of the manuscript), in
order to allow the authors to incorporate revisions during the review process. Note that thelimitation of the total number of figures and tables combined applies to the final version of
the manuscript.
Title, author names and affiliations
An informative title that is attractive to the journal’s readers should be provided. The fullnames and affiliations of all authors, and the name, e-mail address, telephone and fax
numbers of the corresponding author should be provided.
Abstract
A short abstract of 200 words or less is required with each manuscript.
Text
The text should be divided into sections, each with a separate heading and numberedconsecutively. The section heading should be written on a separate line, e.g.,
1. Section
1.1 Subsection

a. Item(1) ꞏꞏꞏ(i) ꞏꞏꞏ .
Mathematical formulas and equations should be written clearly in the text with ample space
above and below.
Running title
The running title should encapsulate the article and not exceed 10 words.
Acknowledgements
The Acknowledgements section should include individuals who qualify as substantial
contributors to the paper, but do not meet the criteria for authorship. The funding sources(including grant numbers) should also be included.
Supplementary Material
Up to 5 items of Supplementary Material, such as large figures and animations, can be
included. Each item of material should be numbered sequentially and specified in the text
for where appropriate. The maximum allowance is 50 MB for each item. The author(s) may
link outside source data (figures, movies, and big data, etc.) from the Supplementary
Material. The authors should briefly describe the contents of the items in this section.
References
References should be arranged alphabetically by authors’ names, without numbering. For
example, the citation of references should be as “according to Rossby (1940)” or “as shownby earlier studies (Rossby 1945; Charney 1947).” In the list of references, each reference
must be complete in the following form:
For a journal article: author(s), year: title of article. title of journal (abbreviated), volume
number, pages.
Kobayashi, S., Y. Ota, Y. Harada, A. Ebita, M. Moriya, H. Onoda, K. Onogi, H. Kamahori,
C. Kobayashi, H. Endo, K. Miyaoka, and K. Takahashi, 2015: The JRA-55 Reanalysis:
General specifications and basic characteristics. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 93, 5–48.
Yatagai, A., O. Arakawa, K. Kamiguchi, H. Kawamoto, M. I. Nodzu, and A. Hamada, 2009:
A 44-year daily gridded precipitation dataset for Asia based on a dense network of rain
gauges. SOLA, 5, 137–140, doi:10.2151/sola.2009-035.
For a journal article in press with DOI or article without pages but with DOI:
Takemi, T., 2019: A template file to prepare the SOLA manuscript. SOLA, 15, in press,
doi:10.2151/sola.2019-xyz.
For a book: author(s), year: title of book. publisher, page.
Holton, J. R., and G. J. Hakim, 2012: An Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology, Fifth
Edition. Academic Press, 552 pp.

For a web page: author(s)/organization, year: name of the page (DOI or URL, date accessed)
Cabinet Office, 2018: A report on damages by Typhoon Jebi (2018). The version of 2
October 2018. (Available online at:
http://www.bousai.go.jp/updates/h30typhoon21/pdf/301003_typhoon21_01.pdf, accessed 20
November 2018)
Figures and tables
The maximum total number of figures and tables is 7. You can use the Supplementary
Material to display additional figures and tables, if you would like to show in excess of thetotal allowable number.
Upon submission, each figure and table can be prepared separately or can be included within
a single file. Separate figure files will be required if the manuscript is accepted for
publication. The resolution of figures and tables should be above 300 dpi. The following
formats are acceptable for figure and/or table files: TIFF, GIF, JPEG, AI, EPS, and PSD. If
your manuscript is accepted, the Editorial Office will request separate files for the
production process.
If you prepare your figure/table files separately, you should upload them in numerical orderto the SOLA ScholarOne system. In this case, the legends of the figures and tables must be
provided in the text box on the figure upload page.
Figure and table legends
To help the Editor and the reviewers evaluate your manuscript, each figure or table must be
provided with a cogent and succinct legend that allows it to stand alone.
Figures: Each figure should be mentioned specifically in the text. Lettering must be large
enough to remain clearly legible when reduced to the journal’s column width. Color figures
are welcome.
Supplementary Materials: Authors are encouraged to effectively use this function of SOLA
in order to enrich or supplement the contents of the main text. Examples are detailed
descriptions of the methods used in the study, supplementary figures/tables/animations, andsample codes for numerical simulations, or data analyses.

OPEN ACCESS, COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING
Article Processing Charge (APC)
Authors or their institutions who are members of the MSJ are charged an APC of 80,000
Japanese Yen; non-members are charged 100,000 Japanese Yen (plus consumption tax if
applicable). There is no extra charge for supplementary file(s) and no submission fee.
Authors can order print-format reprints for their published article. Reprint costs are
additional to the APC and authors are contacted during the production process about theirrequirements.

The journal will waive the APC on an accepted article if all authors lack a professional
affiliation with a research organization or if all authors are based in a “Least Developed
Country” or “Other Low Income Country” on the OECD’s qualifying country list. Other
waivers will be considered on a case-by-case basis by the journal’s Editorial Office. Authors
must apply for a waiver before or upon submission of their manuscript. Requests for waivers
should be made in the cover letter and include evidence of financial hardship; requests will
not be considered after the review process has started. The ability of an author to pay the
APC does not influence editorial decisions. To avoid any possibility of undue influence,
editors involved with the decision-making process for submitted manuscripts are not
involved in any deliberations on waivers.
Copyright, licenses and usage
SOLA has been a fully Open Access journal from January 2018. Articles are published under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This license permits users to adapt,
distribute, and reproduce the articles of SOLA in any medium, even commercially, provided
that the users give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the original source,
provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made, without obtaining
permission from the Meteorological Society of Japan (MSJ). The copyright of articles isretained by the authors. Authors are required to sign a License to Publish form in order togive the MSJ permission to reproduce the article in SOLA under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Note that the MSJ owns the copyright in SOLA articles published before 2018.
Sample codes and/or programs provided as Supplementary Materials can be used, copied,and modified freely without obtaining any permission from MSJ for any purposes, given no
specific terms and conditions for use are provided in the main text. Authors are encouraged
to specifically provide the terms and conditions for the usage of the sample codes. The MSJ
shall not be responsible or liable for any loss, damages, or inconvenience caused by the useof the sample codes.
License to Publish form
The License to Publish (LTP) form signed by all authors should be uploaded to the file
upload page on ScholarOne at the time of manuscript submission or should be sent
separately via e-mail to the SOLA Editorial Office (sola_edit@metsoc.or.jp).
Authors subject to Crown copyright or similar government provisions can attend to these
within the same LTP form
(http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/societyimages/sola/LTP_SOLA.pdf).

POST-ACCEPTANCE PROCESS
Author proofs
The author can view and edit the final form of the manuscript before the article is publishedon the journal’s website. No English proofreading or editing is carried out by the SOLA
Editorial Committee or during the production process. Thus, the author is fully responsible
for the quality of English of the manuscript and the journal strongly recommends authors
have their manuscripts edited by appropriate individuals or companies as necessary.
Reprints

SOLA Guide for Authors

The author can obtain reprints with the journal cover on request by submitting the Author’s
Form (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/societyimages/sola/Authorsforme.doc)
Article availability and digital archiving policy
Once published, articles are available for free under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0(CC BY 4.0) license on the J-STAGE platform at https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/sola/.
J-STAGE preserves its full digital library, including SOLA, with Portico in a dark archive(see https://www.portico.org/publishers/jstage/). In the event that the material becomes
unavailable at J-STAGE, it will be released and made available by Portico.
SOLA Editorial Committee
Meteorological Society of Japan

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